Introduction

Hi. I'm Heartbeat, from the formerly Team MRN. I'm also a high-ELO ranked player, who has three accounts in diamond 1 currently. I've played three roles competitively (mid/ad/support) and i consider myself to be a very versatile player with a good understanding of this game.

you can follows me on twitter : @HeartbeatLoL
or twitch stream: twitch.tv/heartbeatttlol

alright. enough about me! let's talk about Wukong!

Random Fact:

In Korean, Wukong is called Oh-Gong, which is the same as Goku from Dragonball Z.

pros:

Very very strong laning

passive is really strong in teamfights

Has a built in armor penetration on his Q

Can make big plays with his W and E

His ultimate is an AOE KNOCK-UP, that also happens to do a million damage.

Extremely fun to play

He's not common. So people don't know how to play against him

cons:

Does bad against stupidly tanky bruisers such as Renekton/Darius

Runes

Explanation:
I choose to go this rune setting the most. It gives you both armor/mr which stacks very nicely with your passive. And I choose to go armorpen marks over Attack Damage marks because with the changes to armor pen (flat armor pen applies after % armor pen) armorpen is a lot more valuable to wukong who already have ridiculous base damage on his skills (ESPECIALLY his ultimate). And AD Quints to give you a little boost to your skill damage and to help you last hit.

Explanation:
If you're against dumb champions like darius or renekton, take armor glyphs instead of mr glyphs for laning phase. For obvious reason, they only do AD damage so MR glyphs don't do anything in lane, and they're already a hard match up for you.

Because of Wukong's kit, it makes much more sense to go 21/9/0 masteries, which is a more offensive based masteries. Because his kit pretty much is there for you to deal damage, going 21 points into offense tree is pretty logical to me. Anothing thing to mention is that because of Wukong's low cooldowns and his attack speed buff he gets from his E, spell/blade weave masteries are extremely strong on him.

And ofcourse, although it's not much, going 9 points into defense gives you really good stats for laning, as it will reduce the damage you take from champions, health regen, and some free health.

Summoner Sets

Primary Set

Flash is an extremely strong summoner for wukong. It allows your to initiate with your ultimate - combine this with your E, and you will have a very long range initiate capability. Ignite is also a must because you do a lot of damage and taking this summoner spell will significantly increase your chances to kill your lane opponent early.

Item Builds

I start with a fort elixir if I'm not facing against an incredibly tanky laner (like renekton) because you won't ever be able to kill them unless they mess up really hard. Although Fort pot became unpopular going into season 4, i believe wukong is one of the few champions that get rewarded extremely well with a fort pot.

If you don't think you can get ahead with a fort elixir, you should think of going for the flask start, or the doran shield start.
Start flask if you're against a non-AD champion, as you will need to sustain for as long as possible everytime you come back from lane. Wukong does use a bit of mana, so having more regen on both hp and mana is really nice on him.

otherwise, if you're going against something like renekton, then go doran's shield, so that you can match his strength in lane, remember that with the 9 points in defense tree along with doran's shield you mitigate a LOT of damage you take from auto attacks.

as for trinkets, I believe you choose if you want a red one or a yellow one. Yellow one is an all-purpose trinket that will give you a free ward! but red trinket also works if you're playing ranked 5's and you're able to communicate with your jungler. You can clear the enemy ward with your red trinket, and try to apply pressure to the enemy top laner by taking away their wards for top lane.

Final Build(s)

Standard Final Items

Midgame item path

You want to rush as soon as possible. The special thing about this item is that it gives Cooldown reduction which is invaluable to wukong. your ultimate has a relatively long cooldown in earlier levels so this item helps a lot.

Here, you can either decide to finish or get a . This gives you a LOT of armor pen. If you show up to the first or second teamfights with these two items, you can do massive damage, especially to squishy carries.

However, you should also considering buying after brutalizer if you're incredibly fed early. No other item boosts your AD more than this item.. so why not snowball with it?

After getting all that damage, now you need some health to stay alive longer. is the perfect item - it gives you AD and health! Not to mention, the 100% proc slow on your autoattacks (including your Q). This item is definitely a core item because wukong has trouble sticking to targets when your E is on cooldown.

Now lets talk about boots.
If you feel like you can't get by laning phase against those darn bullies darius and renekton,
go ahead and buy early.
If you're not getting crushed, i highly recommend .
Mobility boots work best on wukong because you need to cover the most distance while you're stealthed in order to extend your initiation range. Also, this item helps you roam, and it helps you escape easier after you use your decoy.

So, your late game core item build should be:

wait... we're missing an item!

For your last item slot, I recommend buying a defensive item. Here are your options:

- increases your defenses against AD by a LOT. Also, you can use this RIGHT after you're done ulting for that AOE slow. I recommend this item if you're facing 3+ AD champions.

- generally a good buy because wukong acts as an initiator most of the time. This means you will be putting yourself in danger often. WHAT IF YOU HAVE TWO LIVES DOE? When you're reviving, this should give you all your cooldowns back. So your survival rate increases significantly with this item after an initiation or even a dive.

- against a well-rounded team, this is a pretty good buy. Your passive gives you a decent number of defensive stats, so health should be all you need to back that up. With frozen mallet and warmogs you should be hitting a godmode health number. People would be discouraged to hit a million hp wukong.

- this is a rare choice. If you get suppressed by an enemy everysingle time you want to initiate, that's a problem. So buy this item and show them who's boss.

Not recommended

Trinity Force

A lot of people like this item on Wukong. It's fine as an early rush item, but why would you get an item that only gives 30 AD, and gives you some not-so-helpful stats like mana/ap? Not a big fan of this item for wukong.

Blade of the Ruined King

Some people suggested blade of the ruined king as a good item for wukong. I think not! Gives too little AD which again means your ult won't scale that well off of it. You get enough attackspeed off of your E, so I don't think this item is that efficient on wukong, other than the fact that it will give you a higher dueling ability. Remember, Wukong is a teamfight/skirmish champion, not a dueling champion!

Skill Order

I prioritize over .explanation:
Q only gets 30 more base damage and 1sec less cooldown per level. E gets 45 damage, and 5% more attack speed. Also, Q will always apply a flat 30% armor penetration. I believe that maxing E wins mathematically and logically!

You still want a point in at level 4 because this is your best escape/juke ability. with this, you are much harder to dive under tower, and it lets you do additional juking by pressing S.

Skills

Stone Skin

Some people might say this is a "meh" passive. In lane, this is indeed a very "meh" passive. However, past laning phase this passive is massive (dat rhyme doe). In a full scale teamfight, it potentially gives you 40 more resistances. FOURTY. That's no number to scoff at - and Wukong's ultimate is definitely designed for a teamfight - so this passive lets you stay tanky when you're in the middle of 5 enemies during initiation.

Note: A neat trick! you can see if enemy is hiding in a brush by using your passive and checking if you have extra resistances

Crushing Blow

Basically an auto attack reset skill. Remember that this skill scales off FULL TOTAL ATTACK DAMAGE instead of bonus attack damage. Which means.. it will scale ridiculously off AD items. It also applies a 30% armor pen for 5 seconds on the enemy, which works similarly to a black cleaver. This skill only costs 40 mana!

Note: Remember that the range of this skill is EXTENDED by 125, making this a range 300 skill. Which means if you're going against a full melee champion with no gap closer, you can outrange them to a certain extent.

Decoy

This is your main juke skill. You leave an image of yourself in place, and you stealth for 1.5 seconds. You can use this to initiate from a brush of fog of war. This skill has a really long cooldown in earlier levels so use it wisely.

Note: You can press S randomly or when you want to save your W to make your opponent think that you're using decoy. It's hilarious when you can pull this off - so be creative about it!

Nimbus Strike

You dash to a target, hitting 2 other close targets nearby. You also gain bonus attack speed for 4 secodns after the dash. You usually use this to gap close to an enemy before you use your ultimate. You can also use this skill to juke people after you use decoy. Has decent scaling, and has a really low mana cost.

Note: Remember that when you want to push a tower fast, you want to E to a minion. If you use this skill on a minion you get bonus attack speed so you can take towers faster. ^~^

Cyclone

First and foremost, I want to talk about the scalings. This ultimate has 4.8 TOTAL ATTACK DAMAGE scaling. WHAT???? how is this fair? this is by far one of the hardest scaling ultimates in the game. Okay past the scalings. This ultimate makes you spin like garen except you knock-up everything that you touch. OP.

Note: Wukong's ultimate isn't very strong at level 1. It only does 80 base damage (without scaling) total. So sometimes, if you feel like you need to cut your ultimate short to get an extra E in, you should do that. Wukong's ultimate shines starting level 11.

edit log

11/30/2013 - season 4 changes

Skill Usage

I'm going to make a special section for wukong on how many different skill combo's you can use in lane.
I believe this is what makes wukong so fun, because he has so many ways to use his skills in succession.
This will be an extended section just for that. Without further ado, let's dive in!

Alright. This is the optimal trade skill combo
AA>>>>>>AA as much as you can while kiting forward.

Explanation:
This combo let's you use apply your 30% armor pen to your enemy with your Q. This lets you trade with more damage, including the damage on your E.

However, sometimes you can't always start off with a Q if they're keeping their distance.>>AA>>>>AA as much as you can while kiting forward.

Explanation:
This is to initiate a trade with your E first. Remember that you always want to autoattack before using Q because Q is an auto attack reset.

If you want to only harass, but not do trades, use>>AA>>>>

Explanation:
the idea here is to use all your spells for quick burst of damage, then use W to prevent your opponent from trading back with you. The only bad thing about this is that you use a lot of your mana, but if you're near full mana this combo is quite annoying for the enemy.

Remember that you can always use decoy to stop the trade whenever you want. This can be useful if you feel like you've won a trade really hard and you want to back off until your next set of cooldowns are up.

Another example of using decoy:>>>>AA>>>>AA

Explanation:
This combo works wonders if your opponent has good reflexes and is usually able to trade back with you when you use your E on him. So! If you decoy right after you use E, your opponent will blow his skills on the decoy, and then you can pop out behind hmi and use autoattack+Q+autoattack for big dmg. But remember, only use this if you're sure you won't need decoy to escape!

If you feel like you have good kill potential,>>AA>>>>AA>>

Explanation:
This is your execute combo. You want to first gapclose, get your armorpen on your target, then use your ultimate. Make SURE you Q before you use your ult - having 30% armorpen is HUGE for a big dmg ultimate like wukong's.

For those of you guys who don't know what "kiting forward means" it will be covered in my video below. ^~^

Match-ups

So let's talk about how Wukong does against some popular top champions?
I'll rate how hard the matchup is on a scale of 1(easiest) to 5(hardest)

- 4 this match up is hard. Start cloth+5 pots, and make sure you trade back when you can, but never duel him for an extended period of time. Try to time your decoy so that he will use W(slow) on the decoy. E+AA+Q+W works well against him.

- 2 You have really good kill potential on him early, take advantage of his weak early levels 1~3 and press him hard. Later on, just watch his meter and try not to fight him when hes about to hit dangerzone because that hurts a lot. You can also use decoy to dodge his harpoons. Fairly easy.

- 5 Another really hard match up. I've beaten renektons starting red pot and out trading them early, but he scales ridiculously hard and gets tanky really fast. He also has built in hp sustain. So if you're not confident, start cloth 5. Try to pull the wave near your tower and farm to the best of your ability.

- 3 skill match up. You can outplay him, and he can outplay you. The biggest tip is that you should try to trade when he wastes his stun. Don't trade with him when he has every cooldown, because he out damages you if he can use his passive properly. My biggest advice against riven is just knowing how to take advantage of enemy cooldowns.

- 2 you can punish him really hard. Try to always Q first, because he will try to fling you. Then use your E to gap close to him and you will get several autoattacks in. Remember, this is not just for wukong, but you have to punish singed really hard early because after 6 he becomes incredibly annoying and hard to kill.

- 2 Fairly easy match up. You can use your decoy to take the stun for you. However if you get stunned first, just trade back using AA+Q+E, Then use your decoy and back off. This essentially wastes irelia's W, and you can trade with her again when her w is down.

- 3 ah, the almight jayce. This match up depends on if the jayce keeps on knocking back your decoy. If he ever does, you can outright punish him really hard for it. Remember Jayce's transform has a 6 second cooldown so if he randomly switched forms you have a window to trade with him easily.

- 2 If he didn't take fort pot, you should win this. Once you get decoy he can never isolate you. If he uses jump to trade with you, just pop decoy before he lands and he should Q the decoy. Then just use your aa+Q+E+aa and punish him hard. after 6 you win hard too.

- 3 An even match up. Just try your best to pay attention to his E cooldown. Your E has a much less cooldown than his, so you can take advantage of that and use it to punish him for being in E range when your E is up. Also, you can definitely juke his Q using your decoy, by using it and moving a little bit to the right/left. You beat him early game pretty hard, so take advantage of that.

- 2 pretty easy. He might get annoying if he takes full movespeed set up, but you out damage him by a lot early game. Make sure you crush him early, because later on when he buys cdr+spellvamp he gets extremely annoying and y ou have to do an all-in to kill him. If you start red pot this match up should be a breeze.

Laning phase

A lot of wukong's laning phase will be covered in the video guide.

Top lane has a lot to do with knowing your match-ups. You can use your instinct and experience with wukong to know how to trade against champions you've never played against. The best advice i can give you if you're going against a new champion is play the lane out in your head. Decide if the opponent is melee and you can start by trading with Q instead of E, and if you can juke any of his abilities using your decoy.

if you get him low and he has to recall, you should decide if youre going to push or freeze. Earlier its probably better to freeze if the lane if pushing towards you. Otherwise, just push to the enemy turret and make him miss as much cs as possible.

always remember to buy a ward when you back, this lets you play aggressively with decoy more often. It's also really good to keep an eye on the map to see if enemy jungler goes somewhere else then you have a free lane.

after 6, if you're winning lane hard you should think about roaming down to other lanes after you buy mobility boots. You can use your decoy into your ultimate with great gank potential because your ultimate does both tons of damage as well as a knock-up.

Teamfighting

Again, this will be covered in the video guide.

You want to use your ultimate to its full potential.
good thing about wukong is being able to use decoy from a fog of war/brush and then gap closing with your EQ, then knocking as many people as you can with your ultimate. Try to coordinate your ultimate with another AOE ultimate from your teammates if you can.

if you're using your ultimate as a catch rather than a full-on initiate, then you should just try to stick to your target instead of reaching out to other targets.

As you dive in to enemy team, you'll be in grave danger. If you didnt need to flash to initiate, you probably want to flash out and wait until your cooldowns are back up - then you can go back in. Remember, most of your build isn't tank items, so just know that you need to play as an assassin after you use your ultimate.

Video guide

this is my video guide on wukong. Although the game was a little wonky in the beginning to the enemy team cheesing, I was still able to discuss a lot about wukong's skill combinations as well as how to approach teamfights later on. So do check this game out!

Final Comments

thanks for watching my wukong guide! i hope you guys enjoy it and learn a lot about da secret OP monkey.

remember to follow me on twitter: @HeartbeatLoL
and subscribe to my stream at : twitch.tv/heartbeatttLoL
to learn how to play wukong and other champions

tune in to my stream, i often do commentary and teach how to get better at the game, as well as me trying to get better myself.
this is my stream schedule!
weekdays (mondays~fridays) 12PST ~ 6PST
and i stream on weekends on random times :p
but DO tune in on weekdays! ^~^

Basically, I found that under no circumstances did I want to get hit with his true. In order to safely cs, I used up a lot of mana on Qs and the occasional W do damage him and dodge the lightning.

He would get low, but then have the mana to sustain all the way back up to full with mana to spare while I run oom. So he has a nice cs advantage in lane.
When I used a full combo on him, I could force him out of lane but not kill.

wukong off tank atmas and cleaver is enought for me :D but runes and masteries im borrowing it from you heartbeat :) may this build never die !! if they dont have too much armor at start tho thx and bye

Hello Heartbeat, I am a wukong main, I carried myself from silver 5 to plat 5 in a month with nearly only playing wukong (90 percent of the games). So your guide inspired me a lot, but I have some input. I nearly always go 21 9 0 masteries, I think it suits wu more because he is more of an assassin(he can one shot adcs and apcs, and even kill tanks fast I will explain why soon). So I run the same runes as you do, except I disagree with the full armour page against darius or rene as darius passive does magic damage and rene ult does magic damage( and they usually both build sun fire). So my build is Black Cleaver, Last whisper, Blade of the ruined king(I think blade is nice it synergises nicely with E, and the active is great for when u try to one shot carries as you can speed urself up and slow them in ur ult whilst still doing some damage, also it is good vs tanky chars as it does percent damage and we r already building armour pen, also the life steal is just amazing in prolonged fights and in lane and duels), after that I go tanky items(maybe a triforce, new phage is op, and triforce blade synergies really nicely) GA, Randuins,Sunfire,WArmogs,spirit visage, banshees ( it all depends on who is fed on the other team). And finally I would like to add a little point, a really big misconception is that lee sin counters wukong in lane, but this couldnât be farther from the truth, intact wu counters lee sin: before level 6 you are guaranteed to kill lee or at least zone him from the farm( I always start fortitude pot unless Iâm against like malaphite or zac or darius), lee counters wukong when he is the junglier because he reveals you in invis, but this can be outplayed by blocking his q with ur clone. Also if lee kicks you away it is pretty easy to either position between him and safety before he kicks you, or gap close after the kick with e or in a bad case flash and e. My final tip for wu players is this, dive the adc or apc and then double back to prot ur adc, and try to w as much as possible in fights and reposition to pick off the weak targets that are doing the damages. <3 Heartbeat ur the best man you inspired me a lot.